The Historians' History of the World 01

Much the same argument applies to parts of the work of once famous historians of more recent times: such historians as Hume, Mitford, Thirlwall, and a host of others. Their work, as a whole, can no longer be commended to the student who is to confine himself to a single authority, for in many parts their writings have been superseded; yet there are other parts of their work that are to-day as valuable as when they were written, and it seems regrettable that a great name should drop from public recognition merely because the sweep of progress has dethroned it from supremacy. It is inevitable that the present should always loom large before mankind, and that egotism should stamp with peculiar force the importance of the Recent. “Each generation abandons the ideas of its predecessors like stranded ships,” says Emerson. Yet it must not be forgotten that posterity often plays strange tricks with reputations. Herodotus was held up to ridicule some centuries after his death by a “False Plutarch,” who is only known now because of his attack upon the master historian, while the work criticised, though for some generations looked on with suspicion, is as fully appreciated, after more than two thousand years, as it can have been in the day when it was written.

Similarly, the judgments of our own age of specialism may be reversed by posterity; and in any event it would be regrettable if a once important historical work should be quite forgotten. Yet such a fate threatens work of every grade. Müller’s collection of the fragments of Greek historians gives mere bits from the writings of more than five hundred authors about whom nothing is known—not even the exact age in which they lived—beyond the fact that they wrote works of which these fragments are the only mementoes. Could any page of manuscript of any one of these authors be recovered, it would to-day be considered worth many times its weight in gold.

Precisely the same process of decay is gradually removing the evidences of the historical labours of the writers of recent generations even now. The multiplication of books by the printing-press makes the process a trifle slower, perhaps; but it is no less sure. A goodly number of works that were famous half a century ago are now absolutely inaccessible to the would-be purchaser: the great book markets of Paris, Berlin, and London cannot secure or supply them. A few copies of these works are still extant in private collections and public libraries, but the fate of these is assured. Libraries are constructed to be burned. Some day a lick of flame will wipe out the last copy of any work issued only in a single edition, and the author will become thenceforth merely a name and a memory; or if, perchance, some latter-day Suidas or Stobæus has quoted a sentence from him, such sentence will be treasured in catalogues of fragments of eighteenth and nineteenth century historians. For many such an author, the present work may perform the function of Suidas or Stobæus, for a long list of these obsolescent writers will be found represented in our pages,—not always preserved for their antiquarian interest indeed, but quoted in regard to events concerning which their authority is still standard, and because it is believed that, in the cases selected, their treatment has not been excelled by any more recent performance; sometimes, on the other hand,—but more rarely,—quoted because of the quaintness of their diction, because of the archaic cast of thought through which they reflect the spirit of their times, or because of their sheer whimsicality.

But while emphasising the catholicity of taste that judges matter on its own merits, excluding nothing simply because it is old, it must be emphasised also that in the main such selection leads to the inclusion of a preponderance of recent matter. Each generation builds upon the shoulders of the last, and the work, as a whole, is progressive. So we go not merely to the latest books, but also to the recent numbers of periodicals, the publications of learned societies and the like. And to put the cap-sheaf to modernity, the greatest living experts in each field have contributed original essays and characterisations expounding the latest developments. These contributions, in which master workers summarise the results of years of investigation, will be found not the least valuable part of our work.